(As I’m typing this, Hurricane Sandy is only hours away from making landfall somewhere along the coast of southern New Jersey. I have lots of friends and family in the path of this storm, so I hope everyone gets safely through. Toronto won’t be getting the full force of Sandy, but we’re still anticipating a whallop of wind and rain ((we’ve had a week of wet weather to serve as appetizer before the main course arrives)), so the usual news agencies are cautioning us to prepare for emergencies, stock up on water and food and flashlights, that kind of thing. One of my preparations is to get this page ready to go early, just in case we lose power later!)

Aria’s malfunctioning com button was a key feature of the Aria-Zandarin plotline in Chapter 8 (quick links: it starts on p.229, goes on for four pages, then resumes on p.241). Specifically, the second-to-last panel on this page is a callback to the first part of that sequence. Should Aria be worried?

IMPORTANT GALAXION BULLETIN! (Huh, just like the weather alerts…) Here at Galaxion HQ we’ve been noticing a disturbing trend for our wonderful readers who’ve been generously using the donation button or buying the print editions. It seems as though some of you haven’t been getting the links to the digital copies! When you donate, you should automatically be redirected to a page with links to download the current bonus short story, “Burden of Command”. When you buy a printed book from our online store, there should be a page with links to the digital copies (because we feel you shouldn’t have to buy the book twice to enjoy reading it on any device you wish). And of course, when you buy the digital edition you should see the same links. IF YOU HAVE DONATED OR ORDERED BOOKS AND HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR DIGITAL COPY, please let us know! (email me: tara at galaxioncomics dot com; you can also find this info among the links in this page’s lower right column) Also, if you have bought books from me at a convention or other appearance and would like a digital copy, send me an email. We’re in the middle of trying to sort out this problem, so hopefully our wonderful readers won’t miss out in the future!

Even poisioned by alien insects, Zan is still Zan. Morse code would be a good idea if Zan knows that someone on the ship understands archaic signaling systems. The shipboard recievers will be monitoring the landing party frequencies, even the odd frequency modification that Zan performed on her equipment earlier.

Aria might be a little in disbelief, but she’ll feel better once she sees this is Z getting back to himself. The question is, is it dangerous to contact anyone, are they being used as bait for the hunter?

Phone service is not working in large portions of the New York metropolitan area, a problem which has somehow gotten worse since midnight last night as the worst of the storm abated. In addition, a very high percentage of New York City, New Jersey and Long Island is without power to run those digital phone service modems. Some areas are still flooded, and the residents of these areas are likely staying with friends or in shelters. Cell service in areas with widespread blackouts (and even in some areas with power) is hit-or-miss, as everyone is trying to get hold of family and friends. If you can’t get someone on the phone, do not despair; they’re probably having just as much trouble trying to call you to say they’re okay.

Also note that the Internet does a better job of routing around missing or overwhelmed nodes than the phone system does. If phones aren’t working and text messages get no reply, it can’t hurt to send an e-mail as well.

I think it’s more that Zan was implying that there was an easy solution to their signalling problem, but now she realizes that what he really meant was that he’s going to take the button completely apart and put it back together in the shape of something else.

“Ok, I’ve gotten it to work. I had to add some componants, so it’s too big to wear it as a collar button now, but you can wear it on your chest like a Sheriff’s badge. Just tap it when you want to talk!”